Wrong
by Sarah1281
Summary: Megamorphs 3 AU. Visser Four changed so much that the same people wouldn't have gotten married and been born so most of the regular Animorphs don't exist. Now a team of ruthless Animorphs who won't exist if they 'fix' things are faced with that choice.


Wrong

Disclaimer: I do not own Animorphs.

Note: Inspired by a LiveJournal discussion about how the canon Megamorphs universe was too similar to the real one despite all these crazy changes.

My name is Cassie and there is something wrong with this world, wrong with this whole universe. Or maybe there's just something wrong with me. Heinberg's razor, right? The most complicated explanation is usually untrue. That's not always the case, though. When people act weird it's hard to get more complicated than an alien invasion and yet there really is one going on right here on Earth.

I'm not crazy, I swear I'm not. At least…I'm not wrong about this.

Aliens are real, regardless of what the Empire says about it. It took us all days before we could really accept that the Empire was wrong about this but we just saw so much proof that we couldn't _not_ believe although Henry gave it an honest effort.

There are a lot of aliens, as it happens. I guess it makes sense. Either humans are special or it's like Ayn Rand's _War of the Worlds_.

Most of the aliens don't matter. The Andalites matter because they gave us the power to morph and Ax fights alongside us but other than that they're pretty useless. Ax isn't really one of us, either. When we first met him we didn't really know if we should include him or not because we didn't know how aliens _should_ be treated but he was just so openly disdainful about _everything_ that there was no way that we could accept him. No one likes to be told that their culture is wrong even if they sometimes…no one likes it.

The Yeerks are the real threat. It's all the Andalites' fault that they're terrorizing the galaxy because they were stupid enough to trust a bunch of brain-stealing slugs. As any sci-fi program could tell you, that would not end well. I had to talk Henry and Benedict down from killing Ax when we found out about Seerow that time Emma got infested. Ax would never have told us willingly. Still, we couldn't afford to lose him and maybe we wouldn't even succeed in killing him. But one thing I do know is that that story destroyed any chance we ever had of being a team.

I never liked Ax anyway. All my life no one has ever questioned the Empire. Ax questions _everything_ about it. 'Why do you force some women to breed when you round up and shoot others?' 'Why does the pigmentation of your skin matter?' 'Why does someone being more primitive than you necessitate their slaughter?' 'Why do any of you care about your Empire's war when you have to worry about the Yeerks?'

Some of his questions resonate in a secret, shameful place deep inside of me. I try not to think about what that means but sometimes the way that the others look at me makes me wonder if they suspect. I know they won't turn me into the Triple S, though. They might as well shove my head in a Yeerk Pool themselves and then we're all doomed. But would they kill me? I wish I could be certain.

We're all meeting in my barn. I don't know why but our Supreme Leader will tell us when he's good and ready.

Benedict is glaring at September Twelve as she's probably what's holding us up. "Clearly we want to be alone. Why is she so stupid that she can't see that?"

"She's a slave," Emma said dismissively. "She's enslaved _because_ she's stupid. What do you expect?"

I felt a strange need to defend her even if it would hardly help my position. September Twelve was a slave and was denied even having a proper name. Should she really have to take this abuse as well? The fact that she was mostly deaf (thus her slave status) and wouldn't be able to hear them didn't make it better.

"It's not her fault. She has her duties and she has to complete them or we'll beat her," I told them.

"And this is my problem _how_?" Benedict asked coolly.

Benedict's not really one of us, either. He used to be but he was trapped as a wolf for a few months. Then the Ellimist had wanted us to save some Hork-Bajir and turning human again had been Benedict's price. The Ellimist had tried to cheat him and merely gave him the power to morph again so Benedict had to trap himself in his own form and is now pretty much out of the war. Ax seems to judge Benedict for his choice but it's not like it's _his_ fault that the Ellimist didn't just make him human. Who can possibly blame him for not wanting to live out his life as a wolf?

Ax and Benedict have never really liked each other (I don't think any of us likes Ax. I'm probably the closest thing he has to a friend on this planet) and it's only gotten worse since we found out that Benedict's father wasn't even human. Ax acts like being his brother's son and thus quasi-Andalite should be an honor or something. I didn't see Benedict sober for three weeks after that little revelation and he trashed that lawyer's office. Even if Benedict's 'cousin' hadn't really been Visser Three, I doubt that offer to move in still would have been on the table. Benedict is still completely human as Elfangor had been human when he was conceived but…it was still disturbing.

"We've got a problem," Henry said flatly. "Erek's contacted us."

"Let me guess," Alan said sardonically. "That damn robot can't solve his own problems."

"Oh, he can," Emma said angrily. "He just chooses not to."

We were never going to like someone that's not alive – not really – masquerading as human but we especially can't stand him because of the crystal. Erek could change the behavior he could carry out and he did. For one brief moment we knew victory. But Erek decided that his pacifistic purity was more important than saving the human race and none of us has ever forgiven him.

Erek makes me sick.

{What does Erek want?} Ax inquired, not having an opinion on Erek one way or another. He never seems to have an opinion on anything other than the many failings of humanity. That might annoy me if I cared what he had to say.

Henry glared at him. "I was getting to that. The Yeerks are going to start another front organization. Unlike the Sharing, this organization has a very specific target." He seemed to be waiting for something.

Never let it be said that I cannot take a hint. "What?"

He nodded at me. "They're going after our boys down in Brazil."

I frowned. That didn't make any sense. "Why would the Yeerks care if we slaughtered a bunch of Primitives?" Too late, I realized that that might have come out wrong. Henry and Alan exchanged a look. "I mean, how will infesting them help? They're off in the jungles and can't really help the invasion."

"They won't be down there forever, though," Henry pointed out. "But they're especially vulnerable. They think that nothing could be worse than slogging through the jungle. The Yeerks promise to distract them…"

"And when they come back they all get homesteads, slaves, and cars," Benedict said, realizing where Henry was going with this. "And a lot of them go into the government or rise in the army…damn. This furthers Yeerk conquest _and_ sabotages the war effort."

I sighed. "Can we really afford to worry about the war down in Brazil?"

Henry eyed me warily. "What do you mean, Cassie?"

"Look, I'm not debating the…merits of our fight," I said flatly. I couldn't afford to. "It's just that the Yeerks are our first priority."

"I don't know about _you_, Cassie," Alan countered. "But I don't want to have to share a world with slugs _or_ Primitives."

"Then you'll have to trust our troops to take care of the Primitives because they don't even _know_ about the Yeerks," I said, trying to hold onto my temper. "We're _already _losing and we can't afford to split our focus! The Yeerks win and they won't kill the Primitives; they'll make them our _equals_ as slaves."

Henry's eyes flashed. "How _dare_ you-"

Someone was clapping. "Oh, bravo! Bravo!"

Henry spun around. "Who the hell are you?"

The creature looked like someone had jammed a large prune and a large lizard together. It had two legs and balanced its body with a stubby tail. There were two pathetic, too-jointed hands and a head that wasn't right for its bird-like body. It was hard to tell what color it was. It was almost black but not quite and there was green around the eyes and the mouth.

"It must be a Yeerk," Emma deduced. "Some new host body."

"Why do they even bother with us when every time we turn around they have some new host body?" Benedict asked the world at large.

Henry nodded to Alan who immediately started morphing to panther.

"Aximili-Esgarouth-Isthill, you are unchanged but that is no surprise," the creature said. "Andalite history was not tampered with. Visser Four always was a bit of an idiot."

Visser Four? I'd never heard of him but that means this must be Yeerk-related. All weird things in our life are in some way or another.

"Do you know him?" Henry demanded, enraged. "Would you keep secrets from your Supreme Leader?"

{I do not, Hen-Supreme Leader,} Ax said curtly.

"Harder to believe that with all of these changes _Cassie_ is still here," the creature continued, shaking his head at me. "I would have preferred Rachel. She's the only one with any real potential. Still, this new world order would have had no use for her. It's loss."

Alan swore. "I _told_ you we should have-"

"I don't know him either!" I interrupted.

Alan laughed harshly. "Like we're going to believe that. You're one slave massacre away from declaring for them!"

"You should," the creature said. "She has no idea who I am."

"We're less inclined to believe _you_ than Cassie, you freak of nature," Alan told him.

The creature chuckled. "Oh, fair enough. I'm the Drode, by the way."

"What are you even talking about?" Benedict demanded.

"Have any of you ever heard of the Time Matrix?" the Drode asked coyly.

{What?} Ax's stalk eyes snapped around to stare. {That's a myth! No such device ever existed.}

"Explain now," Henry ordered.

"I'll do it," the Drode volunteered. "It's a device that will take you anywhere and any time you so choose. You can even create your own universe like the Visser, Elfangor, and Megan did."

{My brother would not work with a Yeerk!} Ax burst out.

"Poor little naïve Aximili," the Drode laughed at him. "I suppose next you're going to tell me he didn't work with a Yeerk more than once, didn't refuse to kill the Abomination when he had the chance because he was 'defenseless' and even knocked old what's-his-name out so that the Yeerk could infest him."

{LIES!} Ax shouted.

The Drode just smiled at him. "About the Time Matrix. It was recently found by a lowly human-Controller who uses the name John Berryman. He's from another timeline, you see, a timeline before the Yeerk started messing with history. His Yeerk used to be Visser Four but after the Earth resistance cost him Leera he was demoted and banished here."

"We've never heard of Leera," Emma told him.

"Oh, the Yeerks won that here. But in the world that was, he lost it and he found the Time Matrix," the Drode explained.

"Why are you telling us this?" Alan asked suspiciously. "Surely you're not just here to give us all a bunch of trivia about a world that no longer exists. If it ever existed."

"Oh, it existed all right. Until about twenty minutes ago it existed," the Drode assured us.

"That's preposterous," I protested. "We're not twenty minutes old. We have lives and families and histories."

"_You_ do," the Drode agreed. "But twenty minutes ago everything changed. It all played out, years and centuries and whatnot, but only as of twenty minutes ago. And I'm telling you this because these changes make the game too easy and we do not approve of a mere mortal running around mucking things up with the Time Matrix."

"You want us to fix things," Alan said slowly. "What, exactly, are we supposed to 'fix'? I think our world's just fine."

{I can think of a few things,} Ax muttered.

"Shut up, Ax," Henry said automatically. "Alan's right. We have to know what kind of changes we're agreeing to before we do anything? Are we supposed to be from a world without Primitives?"

The Drode cocked his head. "Well…yes and no."

"Just tell us," Emma instructed.

"The people of South America have not been wiped out but nor are they known as 'Primitives' and your Empire – which is a bunch of separate countries – are not looking to massacre them," the Drode told us. "I'm not going to lie and tell you that everything is equal but it's far more equal than this. Slavery is _officially_ over with but some things will never completely go away. In your area, at least, the government does not force women to breed nor does it kill people. And the technology? Imagine it's jumped ahead by about fifty years, maybe more."

I tried to imagine that. A world without the war? Without the slavery? A world where everything was different? I just couldn't. But I wanted to. And if we were going to be given a chance to fix that then I could admit it.

Henry had a look of abject horror on his face. "And you want us to 'fix' our world so it turns into that…that _thing_?"

"Cassie's willing," the Drode said knowingly.

All eyes on me. I thought that Ax looked almost pleasantly surprised but I'm no expert on alien facial expressions.

"And why not?" I asked. "What's so wrong about wanting to get back to a better world?"

"Nothing," Alan replied. "Except weren't you listening? It's _not_ a better world! I mean, more advanced technology might be nice but it's not worth all the rest of it!"

"_I_ was listening just fine," I said quietly.

"Bloody radical," Alan said, shaking his head in disgust.

"You might be interested to know that your counterparts are faring far better against the Yeerks than you are," the Drode informed us. "It's the extra freedom, I think. In this world, people are much more likely to just casually move from one form of intense oppression to another."

"I don't feel oppressed," Benedict announced.

The Drode rolled his eyes. "Well you wouldn't, would you?"

"I can't believe that there's a world out there where I would be okay with all that…_equality_," Emma said, wrinkling her nose. She said that last word like it was dirty. There were times I wondered why we were even friends at all let alone _best friends_. But she was no different than any of the other people I knew. She was better than the likes of Alan or Henry.

"There isn't," the Drode said simply.

Emma frowned. "But you said-"

"I said that there was another world out there with these things, not that there was another version of you," the Drode clarified. Partially.

"So there's another world and we hate it because we continue to hold strong to our values?" Henry asked, trying to understand.

The Drode shook his head. "No, what I'm saying is that aside from Aximili whose development is unaffected by the changes to Earth and Cassie who I really don't know why she's here none of you exist. Oh, Elfangor still had a son with a human woman but this woman was Loren not Megan and his name is Tobias. He was trapped as a hawk and never did become a human _nothlit_ though he was offered the opportunity. Instead of Emma there's my wonderfully violent and half-crazed Rachel. Instead of Alan we have the _Hispanic_ Marco and let's not even get started about saintly compassionate Jake who _hates_ being the leader."

Henry was shaking. "So let me get this straight…you want us to not only ruin our world but you want us to agree ourselves out of existence?"

"Hm…you're right, that's not fair," the Drode agreed. Too easily, I thought. "Let's leave this decision up to those who will continue to exist. Aximili? Cassie? What do you think?"

Ax didn't even have to think about it. {Change it.}

That just left me. I bit my lip.

"Cassie!" Emma exclaimed, scandalized. "You can't possibly be considering this!"

"Why not?" I asked.

"Even if you can like that sort of terrible world – and you've always been a little weird so maybe you can – we won't even exist! Would you really do that to us?" Emma demanded.

"What about the people who existed half an hour ago? They already existed naturally and now they don't," I countered.

Emma shrugged. "You don't even know them so they don't matter."

"I wish I could be as sure of this as you are," I told her quietly. The decision was easy for the others. They wanted to exist and loved their Empire and so would never agree to it. Ax's decision was just as easy because of how much he hated it here and hated all of us.

I wish this hadn't come down to me. I didn't want to be responsible for _anyone_ ceasing to exist but no matter which was I went I'd have to do it. I wish I could just…go back to the start and stop all of this. Find out who this John Berryman was and stop him from finding the Time Matrix or getting infested or something. And maybe I could if I ever got my hands on the Time Matrix. I had no idea how else to fix things.

I just had to take this creature's word that things were really that much better. I had no way of knowing that this world wasn't actually the improvement. I found myself believing him, though, and I didn't know why. My instincts have yet to fail me, though, and so I think I know what I'm going to have to do.

"I'm going to have to go with the world without slavery and mass-slaughter and all of this savagery," I said quietly.

"You selfish-" Alan began angrily and then he was gone.

They were all gone, all but Ax. He was different, though, and so was I. Better.

And in their places were the people that I loved and would gladly die for. I knew I had made the right choice and I couldn't believe that I had even had to think about it.

"Okay, I think I speak for everyone when I say: What the _fuck_ was that?" Marco demanded.

Review Please!


End file.
